IRVINGTON, NJ — Municipal Council President and North Ward Councilman David Lyons admitted on the record at the last council meeting in June that the township is facing a larger budget deficit than the $3.25 million for 2015 previously acknowledged by Mayor Tony Vauss and other municipal officials, prompting employee furloughs, layoffs and givebacks that went into effect Monday, May 1.
Lyons said the township also has to deal with a $2.4 million deficit for 2016 that is reflected in the $109,930,685.08 Calendar Year 2017 Municipal Budget that the council received from Vauss, reviewed, revised and sent to the state Division of Local Government Services in Trenton for approval. Lyons also said the budget contains a 1.5-percent tax increase, but that’s not due to the $2.4 million deficit on top of the existing $3.25 million deficit.
“Not only did we send in a budget, we sent in an annual financial statement also,” said Lyons on Monday, July 10. “Everything has been submitted and now we’re just waiting on the state for approval. Last year, that was on the council. They wanted to rush it and, when they rushed it, the budget wasn’t finished. This year, we wanted to take our time and make sure that it was completed, before we sent this out.”
Township residents, including Irvington Joint Block Association Coalition and Nesbitt Terrace Block Association President Elouise McDaniel, said they were shocked when they heard Lyons admit Irvington was running $2.4 million deficits for 2016 and 2017, in addition to the $3.25 million for 2015.
“I couldn’t believe he actually said that and told the truth on the record, for once,” said McDaniel on Wednesday, July 5. “I turned around and looked at all those town employees and Team Irvington Strong people that have been clapping and cheering for the last three years and talking about the great job that Tony Vauss was doing as mayor, and asked them what they had to say now, after hearing that. They weren’t saying anything.”
Even some of the town employees who attended that June meeting said they were surprised by what Lyons said on the record that night.
“I went to the last council meeting and he definitely stated those things, regarding taxes and deficit,” said Capt. Kaimu Suggs, president of the Irvington Fire Department’s Superior Officers Association union, which agreed to the furloughs the Vauss administration proposed as the remedy to fixing the $3.25 million 2015 deficit.
The Irvington Fire Department’s rank-and-file firefighters in the IAFF Local 305 did not agree to take furloughs, as the Superior Officers Association and the Police Department’s PBA Local 29 did, and were the only bargaining units in town offered that option, since the remaining employees had to accept and go along with whatever the administration proposed.
“We have six unions in Irvington; five out of the six unions took the deferred payments or furloughs,” said Vauss on Monday, May 1. “Most of the employees agreed to take the deferred salary payments, instead of actually taking furlough days off, and the one that didn’t was because they didn’t have enough union members to hold a vote, once we announced the new plan, so they had to go with the old one, that included days out of work. All the directors, the mayor and the council are all on deferred payments.”
The deferred payments Vauss referred to are a new twist on the furlough and layoff plan he announced Tuesday, April 4, for which municipal employees who are usually paid 26 times during an average year had the option of voting to defer their pay by accepting 24 bimonthly regular salary payments instead.
Vauss said all employees who accepted the deferment plan agreed to be paid on the first and 15th of every month for about a year. Getting paid twice each month equals 24 full-salary regular paychecks, instead of 26 reduced paychecks, due to mandatory no work days that included no pay at all.
The goal was to lessen the impact of the furloughs Vauss and Finance Director Faheem Ra’Oof said were necessary to plug the $3.25 million hole in Irvington’s finances that a 2015 audit revealed. This doesn’t take into account the Calendar Year 2016 township budget or the Calendar Year 2017 budget process.
On Tuesday, May 2, Lyons said the deferred payments plan was the best way for the township to go because: “People are (angry) about the situation, but it’s better to have a job with furloughs than no job at all.” Lyons’ opinion has not changed, despite the severity of Irvington’s fiscal woes.
“Even if we didn’t have the deficit, we were going to raise taxes,” said Lyons on Monday, July 10. “In 2016, taxes actually went down. With the 1.5 percent tax increase that we’re having now in 2015, that would have been more. Your taxes are still lower than they were in 2016 and they’re definitely lower than they were in 2014.”
Lyons also said council had the option of increasing taxes as much as 2 percent, to the limit the state cap on tax increases allows, but opted not to do so. He also serves as the chairman of council’s Finance Committee.
““Nobody likes to see deficits,” Lyons said. “It was $3.8 (million) in 2015. We got that down to about $3.25 million. There are no (chief finance officers) on the council. That’s why we have a budget consultant. We don’t know everything.”
Lyons also said the 1.5-percent tax increase in the $109, 930,685.08 municipal budget for Calendar Year 2017 doesn’t have anything to do with the increase in the town’s sewer tax rate, which Vauss and other officials have been warning residents about for some time leading up to the introduction of the new budget.
“The sewer tax rate was going to go up partially, because we needed some money to finance some things that we wanted to do,” said Lyons. “The sewer rate generally goes up regularly. You keep things from increasing dramatically by increasing it a little bit at a time, when you can.”
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Well if you really want to reduce the deficit, Try reducing your part time salaries of an immediate 40k decision and stiphends for non employees and no job description.